The field of the present invention relates to optical devices incorporating distributed optical structures. In particular, distributed optical structures in planar waveguides and coupling in-plane and out-of-plane optical signals are disclosed herein.
One or more distributed optical structures (i.e., sets of diffractive elements) in a channel waveguide, an optical fiber, a slab waveguide, or another guided-wave optical structure may be used in a variety of devices for spectral filtering, laser frequency control, spectral multiplexing, optical sensing, or other functions. It is often desirable that such devices be optimized, or nearly so, for routing, mapping, or coupling optical signals between input and output optical ports with minimal optical loss. Distributed optical structures designed by computed interference between simulated optical signals are disclosed herein that may enable such optimized routing, coupling, or mapping.
Various embodiments, implementations, and adaptations of such diffractive element sets are disclosed in: application Ser. No. 11/021,549 filed Dec. 23, 2004; application Ser. No. 10/998,185 filed Nov. 26, 2004 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,993,223); application Ser. No. 10/898,527 filed Jul. 22, 2004; application Ser. No. 10/989,244 filed Nov. 15, 2004 (now U.S. Pat. No. 6,961,491); application Ser. No. 10/798,089 filed Mar. 10, 2004 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,823,115); and application Ser. No. 09/843,597 filed Apr. 26, 2001 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,965,464). Each of said applications is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. A publication entitled “Planar holographic optical processing devices” (T. W. Mossberg, Opt. Lett. 26 414 (2001)) is also incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.